Owning your own car can be great. You can basically go where you want, when
you want, at a moment’s notice. In many parts of the world, the
majority of middle-class households own at least one car and, in some
countries, like the United States, private car ownership is very much a part
of the national identity.
But this ongoing love affair with the privately owned car is changing in many
parts of the world, even in the automobile-enamored United States.
What’s different? The cost of ownership, for one thing, and the growing
idea that renting might be better than owning.
The real costs of car ownership
There are a number of ongoing costs associated with having your own car. In
much the same way that adopting a pet requires a long-term commitment –
making sure that the animal is fed, watered and kept safe and healthy
– buying a car means being responsible for keeping the vehicle fueled,
serviced, registered and insured for as long as you own it. Bridge tolls,
access fees and the occasional moving violation or parking ticket can add to
the overhead. Plus, in urban areas especially, where real-estate is at a
premium, finding a safe, convenient place to park your car when you’re
not using it can be both difficult and expensive. Add it all up, and owning a
car isn’t exactly cheap. The idea that cars are expensive and
troublesome to own is catching on, and a growing number of drivers are opting
out.
Walking, riding a bike or using public transport can, in many cases, be
great alternatives to driving, but having access to a car can still make it
easier to do a number of things, like run a series of errands, get to a
meeting or buy large items. Renting a car is, of course, an option, but
traditional rental services have mostly involved multi-day arrangements, for
weekend getaways and longer holidays. What about when you need a car for just
a couple of hours, or just to get across town? That’s where car sharing
comes in.
How car-sharing works
Car sharing refers to organizations that maintain a fleet of vehicles, in a
network of locations, that can be accessed by people (or businesses) on an
as-needed basis, at an hourly and/or mileage rate. With most set-ups, you
apply online to become a member of the service, submitting personal details
and setting up payment preferences. Once approved as a member, you receive a
preconfigured SmartCard that lets you unlock any cars you reserve.
If you want to drive somewhere, you go online, using a website or a smartphone
app, find a nearby car and reserve it. When you get to the car, the
reservation has already been transmitted to the car’s onboard unit, so
your SmartCard unlocks the car. Once you’re done driving, you either
return the car to where you found it, or leave it in a designated spot near
your destination. Either way, you’ve just had the use of a private
vehicle, without the overhead and responsibility that comes with actually
owning it.
Saving money and the environment
The “pay-as-you-go” approach works well for people who might not
otherwise be able to afford their own car, like students and people with
limited incomes, and provides on-demand mobility for people who simply
don’t want to own their own vehicle.
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Car-sharing helps people stay mobile while saving money, and it can also
provide a greener way to get around. Car-sharing services can reduce the
number of privately-owned cars on the road and that, in turn, can reduce
overall emissions. The availability of car-sharing services may help consumers
forego vehicle purchases and may encourage people who already own cars to get
rid of them. Also, many car-sharing services use efficient gas-powered
vehicles or even electric cars. In the French city of Lyon, for example,
designated areas of the city are only open to electric vehicles. The
car-sharing service SUNMOOV provides electric cars and charging stations
for use in these districts.
Car-sharing services can also be integrated into public-transport schemes, to
give consumers more ways to get around. This is especially true in places
where the public-transport infrastructure already uses SmartCards for
ticketing. The car-sharing service can issue SmartCards that are compatible
with the systems used by public buses, metros and railways. Having one card
that works with multiple transportation schemes gives citizens more ways to
get around, and encourages people to lessen their environmental impact by
using public transport more often.
Growing quickly
The basic concept of car sharing has been around for some time – the
first services in Europe began in Switzerland just after World War II –
but the phenomenon has taken off in recent years as Internet applications and
smartphones have made it easier to manage and expand these systems. In the
past 10 years, car-sharing services have started appearing in urban areas
around the world. A report published in 2006 by researchers at the University of California at
Berkeley, found that there were car-sharing operations in about 600 cities
worldwide, with 348,000 people sharing nearly 11,7000 vehicles as part of an
organized car-sharing service. More than 60 percent of that activity was in
Europe, but services have begun taking off in other places, too, including
North America, Asia and Australia. In a recent survey-based study,
Frost & Sullivan found that traditional car sharing services involved
around 700,000 members in 2011. They predict memberships to grow to more than
15 million in 2020.
Rapid growth has started to attract bigger players. The market is already
beginning to consolidate, as small car-sharing companies in Europe and the US
have been picked up by leading car makers and rental companies. In Europe,
Daimler owns
Car2Go
, BMW owns
DriveNow
and Volkswagen and Ford are said to be exploring the market. In the U.S.,
ZipCar
was bought by the rental agency Avis in 2012.
It has to be simple and secure
As the car-sharing market continues to grow, and there is greater competition
within regional areas, the services that have the greatest chance of
succeeding are those that offer a better customer experience. Convenience is
everything in this market, and that means consumers need to feel that the
shared car is as easy (or even easier) to use than one they might own
themselves.
The smartphone apps, websites and back-end applications that these services
rely on need to be seamless, intuitive and efficient. The system has to
support fast reservations, provide vehicles that match consumer needs, make it
easy to find and access the automobiles, and use a straightforward yet secure
method for collecting payment.
Security is an especially important issue when it comes to the SmartCard used
to unlock the reserved car. Counterfeit and cloned cards have already surfaced
in some areas, and the opportunities for abuse increase as the number and
variety of services continue to expand.
MIFARE is an ideal platform
NXP’s MIFARE, which is already the world’s leading contactless
development platform for SmartCards, is a compelling choice for car-sharing
applications. Not only does MIFARE deliver the right level of security, by
supporting the most advanced security functions available today (such as
open-standard cryptography, DES and AES-128 security and high-level Common
Criteria certifications), but MIFARE also offers the broadest compatibility
with the existing SmartCard infrastructure. MIFARE-based SmartCards are used
in more than 650 cities worldwide, and in more than 77 percent of all
automatic fare-collection (AFC) schemes.
Car-sharing systems that use MIFARE-based SmartCards as part of their service
are better equipped to protect sensitive personal data like PIN codes and
member credentials and, at the same time, are more likely to be compatible
with existing SmartCard infrastructures. In Germany, for example, members of
the Car2Go service can access cars using various government-issued SmartCards
equipped with MIFARE-based ICs, including a passport, an ID card or a
driver’s license.
For companies looking to enter the car-sharing market, the NXP MIFARE
portfolio presents a solid starting point for development. NXP’s
current portfolio includes all the building blocks for complete MIFARE
applications – from cards to readers – and is backed by software
tools and development kits that help designers create flexible MIFARE-based
systems that deliver exceptional user experiences.
Sharing is for more than cars
The concept of short-term rentals, which is at the heart of car-sharing
services, is part of a larger phenomenon called the sharing economy. The
sharing economy includes services similar to the ones described in this
article – organizations that offer as-needed access to bicycles,
meeting spaces or other commodities – but it also includes what are
referred to as peer-to-peer rentals, which involve private individuals renting
to other private individuals. The peer-to-peer segment applies to just about
anything you might own and make available to someone else when you’re
not using it – from a spare bedroom to a handheld drill or even a
designer ball-gown. The sharing economy has, to a certain degree, existed for
as long as people have owned things, but today’s mobile Internet-based
services, which make it so much easier for people to find and reserve what
they want, has made the sharing economy an accelerating global trend. Car
sharing is just one example.
Conclusion
The growing number of car-sharing programs around the world is making it clear
that drivers don’t need to own a car to be mobile. Throughout the
sharing economy, the Internet provides the access point for making
reservations and paying for usage. This means that sharing services need to be
both intuitive and secure to use. NXP’s MIFARE technology, which is
already the leading platform for contactless SmartCards in several markets,
can provide the functionality and protection required by the short-term rental
programs that are part of the sharing economy.
